The Price of Justice
by ElnaKernor
Summary: The last mission for Michael Westen, the one that might buy everyone's freedom, is to find out what a former CIA agent is doing now. What's happening in NYC exactly. What happened in NYC, too. Why was John Reese alive, why were Kara Stanton and Mark Snow dead, and whether or not the Agency needs to intervene.


_The last mission for Michael Westen, the one that might buy everyone's freedom, is to find out what a former CIA agent is doing now. What's happening in NYC exactly. What happened in NYC, too._

 _Why was John Reese alive, why were Kara Stanton and Mark Snow dead, and whether or not the Agency needs to intervene._

* * *

 _Burn Notice season 6, except this time it's the Team Michael's trying to figure out. Not much of Fionna and Sam, I'm afraid, but so far I don't have anything planned except the first chapter, so who know?_

 _To be clear, I'm not going to write this story right now. In fact, I might not do much more at all ( I hope I will, but I don't know ), but I had to at least write that first chapter to get it out of my head._

* * *

 **Chapter 1: A lot of fake deaths**

Michael was left out of his 3x3 cell, only to be led to another room – slightly bigger, but just as impersonal, just as cold. Another debriefing, again, one more time. He was almost regretting not having been thrown in a dark hole yet, at one of the CIA's black sites.

Almost, because, as long as the debriefings weren't done, it meant he had a chance to convince his superiors that Card hadn't left him a choice – that, even if he couldn't get himself exonerated of Tom Card's murder, he could still, perhaps, make sure that his mother and his friends wouldn't suffer more from what he had done.

Michael could only hope he'd manage to, at least, preserve his mother, Fiona, Sam, and Jesse from the Agency's wrath.

A man pushed open the door to the interrogation cell, and went to sit down on the other side of the table. It was someone new, an agent Michael didn't know yet. Which was potentially a cause for hope. The change of his interrogator... It had to mean something, right?

Yes, but what?

"The infamous Michael Westen... Agent Andrew Strong."

"Pleasure to meet you, Agent Strong."

Michael had spent the last months being as polite as possible, as calm as this situation allowed him to be. Only showing emotions when he had to talk about Card, about his brother's death, about his friends' future; and even then, making it look like the most harmless of feelings. Sadness, yes, but without anger. A need to be understood, yes, but no rage at not being believed. The wish for all of this to end... but not the frustration that came with being held here for something he felt he had been entitled to do.

Proving them he wasn't emotionally unstable... And that he did feel things too. It wouldn't do to pass for a sociopath, when his only defense for murder was that Tom Card had pushed him past his emotional and moral limits.

The new agent raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm sure that isn't the truth, but anyway. You are in trouble, Westen. Even if Tom Card really had done everything you pretend he did, you still murdered him in cold blood."

Michael gave a cool look at the new interrogator – forced himself not to scream, but to speak clearly, calmly, reasonably.

"I killed him because I saw no other choices. With how he had destroyed my reputation, no one would have ever believed me; he had just murdered the last man who could have testified against him, and he had rendered my attempt at getting audio evidence impossible. He had tried to convince me that what he had been doing was necessary... even if that meant he got civilians killed as collateral damages, even if for that he had to destroy the lives of patriots, of agents, of soldiers, to get them to do what he wanted. He thought he could convince me that treason, if for the greater good, or what he thought was the greater good, was acceptable. He wanted to convince me that I should work with him again; be a traitor, just like him. Even as he had gotten my brother killed."

Michael's eyes locked onto Andrew Strong's.

"I thought of him as a father, until not long ago, and what did he do? He ruined my life, used me, and killed my brother. So don't tell me I killed Tom Card in cold blood."

The agent didn't seem impressed – but it was obvious that, whatever the Agency had asked of that man in his career, he hadn't ever been in a situation when there is absolutely no other choice than to do something you know won't be approved of, even if it concludes with results, because if you don't, then it will be even worse. It was obvious that he couldn't understand.

That was what cannon fodder was for, after all. To take care of the less savoury details.

"Cold blood or not, Westen, you still murdered your superior. You can't just expect to walk away from that. Now, if there was even one substancial proof of Card's malversation, it would be another story..."

"Jason Bly had found that, before his death. I'm sure your subordinates can find out by themselves, especially as they know what to look for, more so as Card himself cannot prevent the inquiry anymore. That is, if you were even willing to consider that I might be saying the truth, which we know isn't the case. Like Olivia Riley, you'd rather keep his memory clean, now that he is dead, rather than to clear a living man of suspicions he hasn't deserved. It's easier, isn't it, to blame it on the field agents? To pretend the higher-ups have nothing to be blamed for..."

Michael sucked in a breath, before he said more – before he said too much.

Agent Strong sighed, and reached down for a file in his bag.

"Don't be so dramatic, Westen. There was an investigation on Card's tricks; Bly had let the djinn out of the lamp, and no one could have put it back inside that easily without raising a few suspiscions. Which is why we have an offer for you, instead of a long stay in a dark hole."

Strong quickly showed him a few documents about Tom Card, and put the file back in his bag. There was only a contract left on the table.

"A mission, to be exact. You finish it, your friends and your mother are free, and you retire."

"And if I refuse?"

Agent Strong gave him a smile that held no real substance; it was merely a facial expression, without emotions behind it. A meaning, surely, but rather contrary to what a smile usually conveyed.

"You don't refuse, Westen, because if you do... Fiona Glennane, Sam Axe, Jesse Porter and Madeline Westen end up in Guantanamo, and you... You end up somewhere even worse. The CIA can't possibly let one of their most effective agents run around freely, when we aren't sure of where your loyalty lies. You wanted justice, Westen? Now it is time to pay its price."

Michael didn't even take a moment to think – but he took a moment to answer. The key not to being broken was not to let anyone see you were desperate, he had found. If they couldn't see what hurt and what didn't, they didn't know where to hit; they couldn't focus the hits on what really mattered.

"What's the mission?"

The smile was back – Michael's had disappeared the moment he had been accused of being a cold-blooded murderer, but apparently Strong didn't care whether or not his smile was genuine.

"You need to sign up first, Westen."

The agent handed him a pen, and pushed the contract towards his end of the table. Michael took the time to really read it – a few more minutes wasn't going to kill him at that point.

His signature eventually adorned the contract.

CIA Agent Andrew Strong took the pen back, as well as the contract, a satisfied smirk playing at the edges of his mouth.

"Welcome back, Agent Westen. Now, let's talk about this mission."

He stood up, undid Michael's cuffs, and gestured for him to follow.

Michael hesitated for a second, then shrugged, and followed the older man out of the interrogation cell. They passed by several closed doors, and no windows. They were probably underground – or deep inside a large building, perhaps.

They stopped five minutes later, Strong opening a door leading into an operational center. There wasn't anyone else, but it was obvious that an operation was being led there. Michael gave the room a cursory glance, taking in the wall covered in various papers, pictures and sticky notes, the four photographs on top of it all; a Delta Force in uniform around Michael's age, a Marines woman with a sweet smile, an older man who looked anxious and frail and whose picture was low-definition, and finally a stern white man in a suit. There was a smaller photo of a black man under the last one.

Michael turned to look Agent Strong in the eyes.

"They are, what, your suspects?"

Strong wasn't smiling anymore, all business and gravity.

"Not exactly, Westen. They are ours."

Then he frowned, walked over to the wall, and pointed at the older man in the bunch.

"Except him. Him, we have no records of. No one can tell who he is, what he wants, and how he has access to his intel. Your mission, amongst other things, will consist in figuring out everything you can about this man... But first, let's talk about how we even discovered his existence."

Michael followed Strong's eyes onto the picture of the Delta Force soldier in parade uniform.

"This man here is Agent John Reese, NCS SAD officer, supposedly killed in action two years ago in China, with his partner..."

Strong pointed at the woman.

"... Agent Kara Stanton. Mark Snow..."

The man in a suit.

"... was their handler and partner, but he wasn't present for that particular mission."

"'supposedly killed', 'was'... That's a lot of deaths."

Strong winced, and shook his head.

"I think it'd be easier if that was really the case, you know, even if I'm not going to ever feel good about a dead colleague. The point is, Westen, that Stanton and Reese were supposed to be dead, but one year and a half ago, Reese's fingerprints appeared in New York. He was apparently living as a homeless person, and had kicked the asses of a bunch of would-be gangsters who thought they could take his alcohol in the subway. The NYPD, the FBI and Mark Snow investigated, since after that, Reese started being seen, all cleaned up, at several scenes of crime. They call him the Man in a Suit; he shows up, shoots a few kneecaps, saves someone, disappears again. FBI Agent Donnelli was convinced he had become a mercenary, but it doesn't add up with everything we know."

"He 'was' convinced?"

"Donnelli's dead too. Killed three months ago, just after he had to let go of a 'John Warren' he suspected of being the Man in a Suit. Needless to say that John Warren looks disturbingly like Reese."

Michael snorted a bit – even if he probably shouldn't, not with all the dead federal agents in this story.

"I'm getting the feeling you're sending me on a suicide mission, Agent Strong."

Andrew Strong gave him an assessing look, dry humor lurking in his eyes – but not enough that Michael'd think he was really joking there.

"Why do you think we're taking a fallen agent such as yourself for that mission?"

Michael didn't answer – Strong didn't wait for an answer.

"Eitherway. My running theory right now is that Reese did become a mercenary, but he's taking on... side-jobs, let's say, in his free time, helping people. His psy evaluation says he's somewhere between cold-blooded murderer and hero complex, impossible to determine which is the right one. He's probably justifying his actions by helping others. You should get along greatly."

Michael ignored the quip – he wasn't justifying his own actions by helping out those in need, no, he was helping those in need because he was asked to. Also, he was completely aware of his own failures.

"So, where was I? Right, Snow went to investigate, almost got Reese one year ago, and then, disappeared eight months ago. His new partner, Agent Tyrell Evans..."

The black man in the smaller picture.

"... was found dead in a hotel room. Then Donnelli almost got Reese in another hotel, but our former employee managed to get away once again. Two months ago, Donnelli finally managed to get his hands on the Man in a Suit... except he didn't know which one of the four men he arrested was him. He kept them in Rykers until he could find out, but it turned out the three others were mercenaries hired by the corrupt owner of a charity fund for veterans. 'John Warren' walked out, but one of the mercenaries was killed in his cell. The same evening, Agent Donnelli was killed; his car was hit by a truck, then he was shot. Next thing we know, Snow and Reese were breaking in a DoD facility with explosive vests strapped on them, under duress of Kara Stanton if the technician Reese saved is to be believed."

"That's a lot of fake deaths..."

"Don't worry, they won't stay fake for long. The technician said Reese had done his best to keep everyone alive and try to impede his former partner's goal, but Stanton managed to upload something on the servers. We still don't know what. What we do know, though, is that Snow and Stanton were found in the exploded car next to the building. But only one vest went off."

Michael looked at John Reese's picture again, then gave the two others former operatives a final glance. He wasn't sure if they had betrayed the CIA, the three of them, if only Stanton had, if she had reasons to turn traitor... But what he knew was that the two dead agents had been on their side at some point.

Reese too.

"You think he's still alive."

"Exactly. And from what we found out, he's working for our mystery man. And they have some disturbingly accurate intel, and ways to make perfect fake identities. I want to know what their thing is about, if we should be concerned, and what Stanton was doing that got her to turn against her colleagues."

"And you're not comfortable with one of our agents running around freely, right?"

Strong gave him a smart look, and his answer was sweetly sarcastic.

"What gave you the idea?"

Michael didn't answer, because the older agent didn't need him to.

Instead, he walked closer to the wall, to observe the photograph of John Reese better – to memorize his features, to get as much as he could from a simple picture.

"That's an awful lot of medals he got there. And... the name tag says Rykes?"

Strong went for a desk covered in papers and other files, and fished out what was probably Reese's personal file. Michael wondered how much of this file was blacked out, how much they could really get out of it. Besides, he knew how unreliable CIA files could be from experience. There was nothing easier than to manipulate a super-secret file which couldn't have back-ups... Only the persons involved, either in the operations, or in the tampering, could tell what was wrong and was wasn't. And, while some agents could retire without too many problems, it wasn't unusual for a CIA agent never to reach retirement; from there, it was difficult to prove anything.

"Deserved medals. John Rykes enlisted in 1993, as an infantryman, and continued onto Ranger, Green Beret, Delta Force until 2005. Then he joined the CIA. His... His assignment was such that he was automatically given a cover identity, unlike you, who are more of an open agent. He became John Reese, and proved to be very... effective."

Michael turned to look at the older agent, a sneaking – unpleasant – suspicion taking over.

"He needed a cover identity from the very beginning?"

Strong closed his eyes for a moment, and shut Reese's file closed.

"You know how it goes, Westen. Reese was a NCS SAD operative. Which means his missions implied the death of one or more individuals, most of the times. You were a very good agent, the best, some would say, but you handled rather usual missions. The kind you see in spy movies. Reese, Stanton and Snow worked for Terrence Beale. And Beale deals with treason. Treason is punished by death."

"Which means the three were executioners."

Strong didn't answer – he didn't need to.

"You can guess why the Agency isn't overpleased by the fact that he's still on the loose. Were he retired, it would be another story. Had he been burned, we could keep an eye on him. But he just... disappeared. He has his star on the wall, next to Stanton's. Everyone thought him dead, and if the homeless part of his story is right, then he probably thought he deserved to be too. He's extremely dangerous, efficient, and his sense of right and wrong has probably been more twisted than most people's, to let necessity take over. Now that he isn't working for us anymore, and that we don't know who he is working for..."

Michael took a moment to consider, his eyes fixed on John Reese's features.

"Extremely dangerous... Aren't we all?"

They were CIA agents, after all.

Strong snorted.

"Of course, Westen. You are a living proof of that. But there are grades even in the extremes."

Michael supposed that was true. He and Simon Escher were possibly as skilled, and potentially dangerous, but unlike Simon, Michael wasn't going to plant a bomb in a hotel just to get what he wanted. Dangerousness wasn't something you calculated only with skills, but also with the will to hurt others, the acceptance of collateral damages. That wasn't something he'd find in Reese's file, even if the shrinks had certainly profiled him. Profiles were useful, but they didn't tell everything.

Agent Strong invited him to sit at the desk covered in papers.

"Your desk, Agent Westen. All these pertain to Rykes / Reese, his military history, the details of his CIA operations we are privy to, no need to precise that's not much, and the NYPD and FBI files on the Man in a Suit. Feel free to take a look."

Michael refrained a sigh as his eyes fell onto the stacks of paper – not just one stack, that'd be too lucky. He started combing through the file, to get a better idea, at least, of who he was up against.

Needless to say that the former operative wasn't just anyone. His military record alone was... colorful. But not in a bad way. The shrinks, army and CIA alike, didn't seem to be able to agree on whether or not he was a sociopath who hid his hand well, or a sacrificial hero with a skewed sense of justice and too strong a sense of necessity.

The latest events seemed to say it was the former, though.

Strong just sat against his own desk, watching Michael as he read. He almost looked like he was expecting him to make a remark...

So when Michael frowned at the file, the older agent wasn't surprised. The younger man looked up, and asked, unsure of what was bothering him, but sure that there was something wrong – but he was only on Rykes' earlier history. Pretty normal, as it was, for a CIA agent. Dead parents and sister, sure, and a few minor problems with the law – fights, mostly. But nothing terrible. Michael was right in that category too, except for the decimated family.

"Any family left, friends, someone he'd go to?"

Strong shrugged, but it was obvious he knew something Michae didn't – something that wasn't in the file.

"Only an ex, but she died not long after he was reported dead in China. Car accident. And, strangely enough, a tall guy asked for her a few months later, just before her husband went missing."

Michael arched his eyebrows, but chose not to comment on that.

He looked back at the file... Something was nagging at him. It was almost... too clean, for someone who'd become a governmental hitman.

Agent Strong cleared his throat, causing Michael to look up. Perhaps it was finally time for him to say what he knew.

"A problem, Sir?"

"You've probably noticed how... clean... John Rykes's file is before 1993."

Michael nodded, carefully not saying anything.

"Well, it appears that the cleanliness is to be blamed on the U.S. Marshals."

Michael's eyes zeroed back onto the uniformed photo of Rykes.

"He's in WITSEC? How did he even enlist, or end up in the CIA, without the Marshals kicking a fuss? And, who was he before John Rykes?"

"They did kick a fuss, but apparently he didn't care. The Marshal who took care of his case thought he wanted to die, or something like that, when he enlisted. But no way to know more, because the Marshal died seven years ago, and apparently they misplaced Rykes' true identity. My best guess is, his file was cut into two, and the official link between John Rykes, and whoever he was before that, went undone. If we could find the right file, of course, a simple picture would be enough to link them back together... but the Marshals have no idea where the first half of his life disappeared to."

"Which means he could still have some family alive, or a friend, but we don't know jack about that. Just great. So, what do you want me to do, then?"

Strong pointed at the NYPD file on the desk.

"It's very simple, Westen. I want you to go to New York and discreetly investigate. If you could become one of the people he helps during his free time, it'd be even better."

"So I'm infiltrating an intelligence-gathering group we're not even sure does exist."

Strong smiled thinly, and headed for the door.

"Easy work, for the famous Michael Westen! Now, get familiar with the case, or, really, cases, plural, while I'm handling your friends' newly-regained freedom. Glennane, Porter, Axe and your mother should be out of their own cells by tomorrow evening. I don't advise you to contact them right away, though. The results of your mission is what'll ensure their continued liberty."


End file.
